


Friends to Lovers

by somuchfin



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, I Tried, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 17:37:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15054344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somuchfin/pseuds/somuchfin
Summary: Buzzfeed Unsolved has made Shane and Ryan best friends, but will they change that into something more?





	Friends to Lovers

The first time Ryan and I shared a bed off-camera was at my place during a storm. There was thunder and lightning and all of that, which we don’t really get a lot of in Los Angeles, and that made me a whole lot of nervous. It was a Friday night and a new season of Unsolved was dropping on YouTube, so Ryan came over to celebrate, which was a typical activity for us. We had some drinks and sat around talking for a few hours, going over Unsolved, work, people at work, people outside of work, aliens, ghosts, and the like. We didn’t get hammered, but Ryan was definitely tipsy by the time ten o’clock rolled around and we were getting ready to call it a night. “Don’t call an Uber,” I told him, frowning as he pulled out his phone.  
“Why not? I’m not fucking walking home in this shit, Shane.”  
“But the weather is so terrible.”  
He held up his cell phone. “Which is why I’m calling an Uber.”  
“But what if it gets hit by lightning?”  
“The Uber?”  
I nodded.  
“Shane, my Uber is not going to get hit by lightning. Besides, how are you suggesting I get home if not by car?”  
“Just stay here.”  
Clearly, this thought had not occurred to him. He looked up from his phone. “Stay here? You mean at your place? Overnight?”  
“Oh, don’t make it sound like such an outlandish idea,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Sorry for caring about your safety.”  
“Shane, you literally said that you’re worried about a vehicle getting struck by lightning.”  
“So?”  
“So you don’t think that that might be pushing it a little?”  
“Fine, get electrocuted. See if I care.” The alcohol was warm in my veins, but I was trying not to let that influence my words. “Call an Uber.”  
Ryan didn’t say anything for a few seconds and just sat still, staring down at his phone. “Look,” he said with a huff, “you don’t even have a guest room.”  
I nodded to where he was sitting. “I have a couch.”  
“I’m not sleeping on your couch over my own bed, dude.”  
“I was going to sleep on the couch.”  
“You’re just going to give me your bed?” He sounded overly incredulous. “No, man, you’re sleeping in your bed.”  
“Then I guess we’re both sleeping in my bed.” I shrugged my shoulders.  
Ryan pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Okay, you know what? I’m not arguing about this anymore. We’re both drunk and it’s getting late. Where are your pajamas?”  
I slid off my chair and smiled, setting my glass on the coffee table. “You think I’m going to let you sleep in my pajamas too? Isn’t the bed thing ‘pushing it?’”  
“Just give me some sweats and I’ll be fine.”  
We padded our way into my bedroom, and I fished out some sweatpants from the drawer of my bureau. “What size are you?”  
“Like that even matters right now, what are we going to do? Run to Target and get my size? Plus don’t act like you don’t already know what size I am, Shane. We are best friends.”  
I couldn’t help but smile at that. “So the pants will fit your waist but be way too fucking long.”  
“Exactly, you dumb giant.”  
I chuckled and tossed him the pants, and to my surprise he dropped trou right there. I averted my gaze and busied myself rooting around in my shirt drawer. “My shirts are all going to be huge on you, man.”  
“I don’t need a shirt, I can just wear mine.”  
“Yeah, but you’re not going back to your place in the morning, and if you’re wearing a wrinkled shirt the people at work are going to pair that with your bedhead and assume you’re doing a walk of shame.”  
“Oh please, they are not. Plus, that phrase is so outdated and not even a thing. Has feminism taught you nothing?”  
“Fine.” I threw up my hands just in time for one of Ryan’s to dart in and out of the drawer with a shirt. “Hey! I thought you said you didn’t want a shirt!”  
He grinned at me, and I felt my stomach do a little flip. “I like this one. Now get changed and show me where you keep your extra toothbrushes.” Heading for the bathroom, he called over his shoulder, “And if you don’t have good toothpaste I’m rioting.”  
“‘Good toothpaste?’” I pulled on shorts and followed him. “What does that even mean?”  
“The minty kind.”  
I cocked an eyebrow and watched him start rifling through my bathroom drawers. “Aren’t they all minty? What kind of toothpaste have you been using?”  
“Yeah, but the good minty.” I reached around him and pulled out a tube of toothpaste from the drawer he already had open and handed it to him. He scrutinized it for a second, and then nodded solemnly. “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”  
“Great, I’m glad my toothpaste passes your test, my tiny prince.” I leaned over and opened the linen closet behind us, fetching a pack of toothbrushes. I began to start digging one out when I stopped and looked up at Ryan. “Which color do you want?”  
He grinned at me a second time. “Do you have red?”  
“I do,” I said grandly, producing it for him. As we brushed our teeth, Ryan pausing occasionally to criticize my technique, I tried not to think about how much this made it feel like we were a couple.  
“Now listen,” Ryan told me seriously as he flopped onto my bed like he owned it. Typical. “I don’t want your feet on my side of the bed.”  
I rolled my eyes. “Mine may be cold, but yours are smelly. So the feeling is mutual. Now scoot over, that’s my side.”  
“Why do you get to pick sides?”  
“Ryan, it’s my bed.”  
We lay on our backs side by side for a while in silence before Ryan rolled over onto his side. “Goodnight, Shane.”  
“‘Night, Ryan.”  
Wide awake, I listened to Ryan’s breathing, waiting to make sure he was asleep. Why I was waiting for that I couldn’t say, exactly; maybe because I felt safer when he was asleep? I felt like at any moment he could spring up and accuse me of feeding into some sick fantasy, some delusional infatuation I had with my best friend, that he’d storm out of my apartment and never speak to me again, insist on a transfer or quit his job, move away. That whole line of thinking was dumb and I knew it, because I knew Ryan; if he ever found out that I had feelings for him he’d just feel embarrassed for himself, feel bad for me, and probably not do anything about it. He probably wouldn’t even let on that he knew. But that sort of thing didn’t really matter in the end, because Ryan wasn’t ever going to find out that I had feelings for him. He just couldn’t. End of story. I rolled over onto my side so we were both facing away from each other and closed my eyes, willing my heart to fucking calm down so that I could get some sleep.

When I woke up, I almost puked. Well, that’s not entirely true I guess; I almost puked after I fully came to the realization that I had an arm around Ryan’s waist and was effectively big-spooning him. At first, it didn’t even dawn on me that that was a thing that I shouldn’t be doing. At first, I thought, this is nice, a lazy day in bed with my boyfriend. Yeah, a few things wrong with that. A lot of things wrong with that. Very wrong with that. Ryan wasn’t my boyfriend but my best friend, and we both were expected at work that morning. I didn’t even know what time it was.  
Instead of snatching my arm away and making it obvious, just in case he was already awake and as freaked out as I was, I waited a few seconds and then leisurely rolled over, pulling away from Ryan in the process. I gave myself ten or fifteen minutes of buffer time before I started moving around slowly, then I pulled out my phone. It was seven-thirty. Eventually I sat up and glanced at Ryan, who was still as on his side as I had left him. He appeared to be out cold. Good.  
I was out in the kitchen eating a bowl of Frosted Flakes when I heard the bedroom door open and a bleary-eyed Ryan emerged, yawning. “Dude, that was a good sleep. What kind of mattress do you have?”  
I frowned and said through a mouthful of cereal, “The regular kind.”  
“The regular kind?” Ryan scoffed and started opening cupboards; he already knew where I kept everything, he was there often enough. “What kind of an answer is that?”  
“This coming from the ‘minty toothpaste’ guy.” I sounded calm, but in my head every time I looked at Ryan all I could think was, was he awake when I was cuddling him? Is it even a big deal? I did it in my sleep, so it doesn’t count. Right? But if Ryan had been awake, he didn’t say anything about it. Instead, he busied himself hunting around for something in my pantry. “The Apple Jacks are on the top shelf,” I told him, and as he reached up and shuffled boxes around I could see the skin of his lower back and had to swallow my Frosted Flakes extra hard to keep from drooling. “To the left. Your other left.”  
When he finally found the box, Ryan turned around and gave me grin number three. “You always have the good stuff.”  
I laughed. “The good toothpaste, the good mattress, the good cereal… I only have Apple Jacks because you like them and consider cold cereal an ideal fare for any meal. Oh yeah, do you want to borrow some of my clothes so that you don’t have to wear the same clothes you wore yesterday to work again?”  
Ryan thought about this as he poured milk into his bowl. “No, because if I show up to work in your clothes people are going to talk.”  
“They’re going to talk if you show up in the same clothes as yesterday, too.”  
“Yeah,” he agreed, glancing up and locking eyes with me, “but they won’t have two and two to put together to figure out that I slept here last night.”  
“Does that even matter?”  
“When the whole office thinks that we’re banging it does.”  
I roll my eyes, but in my head I’m screaming. “They don’t think that, but fine, whatever, it doesn’t matter to me.” I set my bowl on the counter by the sink and make for my bedroom. “I’m going to take a shower. I’ll put your clothes in the dryer for a quick tumble first.”

The second time Ryan and I shared a bed, it was at his apartment. It was about a month after the first time, and it was Ryan’s birthday. He had made me promise to stay sober and make sure he didn’t do anything really stupid, so while he got completely hammered I only nursed a few Cokes. Everyone from the office was at the club where we were partying, and people only started to trickle out around two in the morning. The next day was a Sunday, so I wasn’t too worried about being out that late. “Ryan, buddy, I think it’s time we called it a night.”  
“No!” Ryan had been hanging onto me for support for about an hour at this point, and he was yelling to be heard over the music. “The party’s just getting started!”  
“Ryan, people are going home now because it is very, very late.”  
“But it’s my birthday!”  
“I know.” I had to resist the strong urge to correct him since his birthday had technically been the day before, but I knew that you didn’t say that sort of thing to drunk people. It only confused them. “But it’s time to go home.”  
His eyes lit up. “Are you coming home with me?”  
“I am taking you home, because you obviously cannot do that yourself without risking a concussion.”  
“If you’re coming, I’ll go!”  
He’s just drunk, I kept repeating to myself as I slung an arm around his waist and helped him navigate to the door. He’s drunk and he’s your best friend and none of this means anything. Nothing he says means anything. I called an Uber, trying not to think about the fact that I knew Ryan’s address off the top of my head,  
The entire ride to his apartment, Ryan was babbling to me in the backseat. His chosen topic was his plans for the next year of his life. I could see the Uber driver smiling in the rearview mirror. “Your friend is pretty wasted, huh?” He commented.  
Before I could even consider responding Ryan started to squirm beside me and slurred, “Hey! I’m right here!”  
I rolled my eyes. “Ryan-”  
“Don’t talk to my boyfriend!”  
My head snapped to attention. I stared at Ryan, who, apparently satisfied that our driver wasn’t going to be doing anymore talking, had reverted back to talking about the six cats he wanted. He’s drunk he’s drunk he’s drunk he’s drunk… My heart was screaming in my chest. I glanced up at the rearview mirror, but the driver was looking at the road, not at us.  
Ryan stopped talking when we got out of the car. We nothing short of struggled up the front stoop of his building, and it took some doing to get Ryan to let us in. The lobby and elevator were empty, and I was more than glad for that fact, since Ryan, who was obviously starting to get drowsy, was leaning heavily against me, his eyes closed. Why was I glad no one saw us like that? I don’t know. So that no one in his building would get ideas? Who the fuck cared?  
“Ryan, give me your key.” All I got was a hearty sniff in return. “Ryan, unless you want to sleep in the hallway, I need the key to your apartment.”  
“It’s in…” He paused to yawn. “It’s in my front pocket.”  
“Which pocket?”  
“Left.”  
He leaned against me as I gently fished around in the pocket of his jeans, my fingers wrapping around warm metal. I just managed to drag him over the threshold and into the front hallway. “Okay buddy, this is going to have to be a joint effort.”  
“I don’t understand why you don’t just carry me.” Ryan’s eyes were closed, his head lolling back. “You’re a big, strong man.”  
“First of all, I have noodle arms. You know that. Out of the two of us, you’re the strong one. Now come on, one foot in front of the other.”  
It took another ten minutes just to get him into bed, a combination of him being difficult to maneuver and having to talk him into the idea of sleeping. “Don’t I need pajamas?” Ryan asked as he laid sprawled out on his bed, looking up at the ceiling.  
“Dude, it’s a miracle we even managed to get your shoes off. You’re sleeping in your clothes.”  
“But my closet is right there.”  
“Tough. I’m wearing the pants in this friendship tonight.”  
“But…” Ryan looked at me, down at himself, and then up at me again. “We’re both wearing pants.”  
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “Okay, under the covers you go, big boy. Time for sleepy-time.”  
As I helped him underneath the covers, Ryan progressively looked more panicked. “Wait.” His fingers wrapped around my wrist as I leaned over him. “You’re staying here tonight, right?”  
“I told you that I’d take you home, that’s it, Ryan. I’m sleeping in my own bed tonight.”  
He didn’t say anything right away, and we just stared at each other. “I don’t like to be alone when I’m drunk.”  
Part of me wanted to ask why, but I knew Ryan would probably have difficulty answering that right now. Plus, he was looking at me so intently; it wasn’t just him being drunk and dumb. “Okay, yeah. I’ll camp out on the couch.”  
“Stay here.”  
“Ryan-”  
“We slept in your bed together.” His hand was still on me. My face felt like fire. “Just stay here.”  
I was beyond puzzled. What was going on? What was he doing? He was drunk. What was I doing? “Okay.” What? “Move over. But no funny business.”  
He saluted me with the wrong hand. “Sir yes sir.”  
For a long time we just both laid there beside each other, looking at the ceiling, not saying anything. Eventually I rolled over onto my side, away from Ryan, and soon after I fell asleep.

Somehow, I knew when I woke up things wouldn’t be normal. I just wasn’t prepared for how not-normal things were. Namely, Ryan being curled up on my chest. It was just like what had happened last time, except that this time I was struck so totally with how much I wanted this. Lazy Sunday mornings curled up in bed with Ryan. But Ryan wasn’t into guys, wasn’t into me, and this was just a remnant of his drunkenness from the night before. I sighed deeply, watched Ryan’s head move slowly up and down with my chest, and then, as gently as I could, I started to scoot out from beneath him.  
But Ryan grabbed a fistfull of my shirt and stayed put. Immediately my heart started to get the better of my head, but I just rolled my eyes at myself. He’s asleep, you dumbass. That’s a completely normal thing to do when you’re asleep and something warm tries to get away from you. I stopped moving and left Ryan where he was. Closing my eyes, I rested my hand on the small of Ryan’s back and prayed that I could fall asleep again; I felt like the less time I could spend conscious in this situation the better. Less time for my imagination to run away with me.  
When I woke up the second time, Ryan was gone from the bed and I was resting on my side, alone. The clock on the wall said it was just before noon.  
“Good morning, sleepyhead.”  
I was startled. I hadn’t noticed Ryan leaning against the doorframe, holding a blue ceramic mug in both of his hands. “Morning. Shouldn’t you still be in bed? Aren’t you absolutely trashed?”  
He laughed. “Yeah, I kind of am. Don’t let this sunny exterior fool you.”  
“Have you taken anything for it?” I asked, sitting up.  
“Yes, Mom, believe it or not I know how to nurse a hangover. Not my first rodeo.” He walked over to my side of the bed and handed the mug to me. “Careful, it’s hot.”  
I took a careful sip. Coffee. “Shouldn’t you be drinking this instead of me?”  
“I already had one. Now stop with the nagging. It doesn’t suit you.”  
“Do you remember much of last night?”  
“Oh yeah, I remember all of it pretty much.” He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants and looked down. “Some of the dialogue is a bit hazy, but I’m not too worried about that.”  
“You changed.” I said.  
He looked up, surprised. “What?”  
I nodded at his ratty t-shirt and pants. “You changed your clothes.”  
“Oh, that. Yeah, I woke up and smelled too much like that club- sweat and booze, you know? Don’t really plan on going anywhere, and I feel like shit, so I thought I’d get comfy.”  
“Sorry I didn’t get you in some clean clothes last night.”  
“Dude,” he said with a chuckle, “I was wasted out of my mind and you managed to get me home and in my bed. No small feat. By the way, do you want some clean clothes?”  
“Ryan, none of your clothes will fit me. I’m like twice your height.”  
“Come on, man, I’m not that short.” He went to his closet and began to rifle around. “I’ve got some oversized stuff in here somewhere, and it’s better than your clothes from last night.”  
I came out from under the covers and put my legs down over the side of the bed. “Sure, I guess.” He tossed my some joggers and a sweatshirt over his shoulder. “Mind if I use your shower?”  
“Yeah, go ahead and use whatever you want in there, I have another toothbrush somewhere.”  
“And the good toothpaste.”  
Ryan turned too look at me and gave me a toothy smile that made my heart skip a beat. “And the good toothpaste.”  
I made it about two steps into the bathroom when he called after me, “Oh yeah, what are you doing today?”  
“I didn’t have anything planned.”  
“Want to just hang out here? Maybe order a pizza? Try and nurse me back to health?”  
He couldn’t see me, so I paused for a second like I was thinking about it when in actuality I was gnawing on my lower lip and trying not to scream. “Yeah, sounds great.”  
“Cool.”

The third time Ryan and I shared a bed, we had just finished filming an Unsolved video in some small town on the east coast. It was the weekend, and our sole camera guy had left to go a few town over and visit some family. That left just Ryan and me, and I could already feel where this was going.  
“Hi,” I said pleasantly enough as the two of us approached the front desk of one of the town’s maybe two whole motels. “There should be a reservation under Madej. M-A-D-E-J.”  
The young woman behind the counter clacked at her keyboard. “M-A-D-E-J…” She murmured quietly to herself. She looked up at us. “One queen?”  
I chuckled nervously and said, “No, I made the reservation for two queens.”  
“The reservation says one.”  
“Okay, can we change it? Get moved to a different room?”  
Her lips were set in a thin line. “I’m afraid there’s a fishing convention in town for the weekend. We’re all booked clear through until Monday.”  
I sucked in a breath and glanced down at Ryan, who was giving me a strange look but simply shrugged nonetheless.  
“Do you want the room? I have a waitlist.”  
“Yeah, yeah.” I ran a hand through my hair. “We’ll take the room.” She asked to look at my ID and then handed me two keycards. “Thanks.”  
“Well, she was a ray of sunshine, wasn’t she?” Ryan remarked on our journey up the one flight of stairs; the motel had no elevator.  
“You’re telling me.”  
“So is it going to bother you to bunk with me again?”  
I looked up from fumbling with the key card. “What? No. Not at all.”  
“You sure? You sounded a little against it back there.”  
It felt inappropriate, but I couldn’t help laughing. At some point I had started to become irritated. “I thought that it might bug you, Ryan. I couldn’t care less.”  
“Oh.” The door to our room finally popped open, and he followed me inside. “It doesn’t bug me.”  
“Better watch out or the locals might think we’re banging.”  
“Excuse me?”  
I looked up from unpacking my suitcase. Ryan was standing across from me on the other side of the bed, staring at me. His face was scarlet. “Oh, you know.” I looked back down and focused my hands on rearranging my toiletries. “Better make sure you’re not wearing my clothes when we leave or they might think we’re- God forbid, a couple.”  
Ryan didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “What the fuck are you talking about, Shane? Are you hung up on that one time I wouldn’t wear your clothes after I spent the night at your apartment? What’s even the big deal? What is your problem?”  
Suddenly I realized that I had no way of explaining myself without admitting I was in love with him. Unfortunately, I didn’t have to.  
“Look, Shane, I don’t know what’s going on with you and me anymore.”  
It was time to panic. “What the fuck are you talking about, Ryan? You’re the one who called me your boyfriend.” I knew the moment it came out of my mouth bringing up that night was a mistake.  
“I did what? When did that happen?” Ryan’s eyes were wide, and despite what he said the look in them told me he knew exactly what I was talking about. I did not expect him to say what he said next. “Are you sure you aren’t just hearing what you want to hear?”  
“Excuse me?”  
“You heard me.”  
Now it was my face that was red. I looked down at the travel-size bottle of shampoo in my hand and dropped it back into my suitcase. “You know what,” I said slowly, “I think it might be a good idea if I slept in the car tonight.” In the seconds of silence that followed I closed my suitcase and hefted it off the side of the bed onto the floor.  
“Shane.” Ryan’s voice was quiet, and I couldn’t bring myself to look up at him. “Shane, that’s not what I meant.”  
I wanted to scream at him to stop saying my name. I went to the door, feeling mighty silly, pulling my suitcase behind me.  
“Shane.”  
He was closer to me now, very close, and suddenly his hand was on top of mine on the handle of my suitcase as I opened to motel room door. “Ryan, I really don’t-” I started to say, turning around, but there was another set of lips on mine that cut my sentence short.  
Ryan’s hand came down hard against the wood of the door as he stood on his toes to reach me. He was leaning so far forward that my back ended up flat against the door as it slammed shut, Ryan’s chest flush to mine as he continued to kiss me. I reached up with one hand and touched his face as gently as I could, and I kissed him back. When he pulled away from me, we locked eyes and he said breathlessly, “Stay.”

**Author's Note:**

> I created an account on here just to write this. Hope it doesn't suck. Took me three days to pull the ending out of my ass but I hope you like it.


End file.
